Curiosities

May 22, 2013

Inherent Vice’s Star-Studded Cast 0

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Paul Thomas Anderson’s movie adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice is going to have one heck of a star-studded cast. Among the names attached to the production thus far are Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon, Benicio Del Toro, Martin Short and Sean Penn. The film is tentatively scheduled for a 2014 release. (Bonus: Take a sneak [...]

May 22, 2013

Once You See It 0

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Presented Without Comment: the newly unveiled logo for the newly enacted College Football Playoff and the new poster for Lars von Trier’s latest film, Nymphomaniac.

May 22, 2013

The Nobel Isn’t Everything 0

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Wole Soyinka does not approve of the push for Chinua Achebe to be awarded a posthumous Nobel Prize for Literature, and he doesn’t appreciate fan letters asking for his support to that end. “How did creative valuation descend to such banality?” Soyinka remarks in an interview with SaharaReporters. “Do these people know what they’re doing [...]

May 22, 2013

The Common in the City Party 0

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Tonight!  Celebrate 3 years with The Common.  You can still buy tickets to this elegant lit party here.  André Aciman reads from his latest novel Harvard Square.

May 22, 2013

Poe’s Back 0

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After a period of uncertainty, Baltimore’s Edgar Allan Poe House is finally scheduled for reopening. To celebrate the victory, check out Édouard Manet’s illustrations for the French edition of “The Raven.”

May 21, 2013

The Man Was Hard on Himself 0

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Hot on the heels of The New Yorker, The Paris Review is excerpting Calvino’s letters. In Monday’s entry, POSTERITY IS STUPID, the author writes the following: “Although I am small, ugly and dirty, I am highly ambitious and at the slightest flattery I immediately start to strut like a turkey.”